Spring Clean Maurice

So, finally managed to get around to doing something with this project. real life interfering with pleasure.  Let’s make some roads. I mean what could be simpler than a road system?

Well in my usual enthusiastic jump in and DO something I started to cut up 30mm strips from artists mounting board – the thing which is typically used when framing watercolor pictures.  I happened across some old mounts from pictures I had thrown out, so – waste not, want not.

Well, in principle the roads “work”, but are rather bland, so I tried to add some hedges using washing up “scrubbers” but of course these were too large resulting in “flying” troops.

So, maybe widen the road before adding the “hedges?  Well I tried 45mm and 40mm.  45 looked far too wide, so 40mm it will be.  But what to use as hedges at this scale?  I thought of pipe cleaners, but was unable to find them, but DID see some children’s arty-farty rather sparkly things made in a similar way. (See pictures). These I spray painted green.

To “mount” them on the roads, I used some wooden skewers glued to the road edges.  (these actual were also good for strengthening the roads and preventing bending, something I was nervous about. So a surprised additional benefit).  However, I couldn’t find a good way to glue the sparkly things to the skewer.

Next attempt was to forget about making the hedges especially large, and just use the skewer as the hedge. After all these are reasonably in proportion, and we’re not talking about french style bocage.

First though, some painting ideas on what colours to have the roads.  I used a variety of acrylic paints using Raw Sienna, Burnt Sienna, Ochre and a mix of them.  The effects were OK, but the final colour was, at this point not fixed.

For the hedge base (the skewer) I painted it a dark grey – “Payne’s Grey” which represented the dark wood of a typical hedge.

Nevertheless, to continue with road “production”, I proceeded to glue the skewers to the roads and glued some flock on to see what the effect was.

It was mixed in my eyes.  Pictures show the 30/40/45 mm roads for comparison

The next step was making some connecting pieces, such as turns, junctions etc.

The mounting board had “natural” corners, and using them as a guide I ruled off a number of road junctions.

For 90 degree curved roads, I drew these freehand following the lines I had drawn on the mounting board corners.

For more gentle roads I used a small plate as a guide, and this was also useful as a “ruler” to support cutting up the board with a craft knife.  As ever be especially careful when using a knife and make sure to have a new blade  (I ended up in hospital with a sliced finger some time ago when using a non-sharp knife!). It’s better to have several careful cuts than try to force a single cut or a blunt knife!

The curves were made with white DAS putty, but any other similar materials should suffice.  For the curves, I lined up the boards with parallel lines 40mm apart and used the plate to “connect” with the outside line/ The inner curve was made freehand.  Although I did not try this, different sized plates should result in slightly gentler curves.

One mounting frame can produce several strips of road, and various curves.

However, I had in mind to use a previously failed experiment in making my own “flock” which had resulted in quite course grained flock as “bushes”. Thus breaking up the rather bland look of the hedges.

Finally I make some straight junctions and connections

The roads were coloured based on my previous experiments, and mixing colours from Ochre and Sienna, but I afterwards I thought they were too “yellow” and toned them down by a wash of heavily diluted Raw Umber. Acrylics are not transparent, and I could have used watercolors, but had none handy at the time I was working.

The darkened skewers were painted with the grey and then some Jarvice flock added to the ends of each road so that there would be a similar hedge effect when lined up.  But I still wanted to liven them up.

I had in mind to use a previously failed experiment in making my own “flock” which had resulted in quite course grained flock as “bushes”. Thus breaking up the rather bland look of the hedges.   This was applied with almost neat pva glue, I’d guess about 80% PvA.

So, not absolutely what I had originally imagined, but they are playable, and I guess that’s what matters.  I think I’ll need to make a few more straight pieces  for completeness, but it’s a sound start.

Next up – Rivers